


a second chance

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Meet Cutes [17]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mentions of cancer (past), again in the past, as canon chimney's mother, canon maddie/doug but not mentioned, mention of palliative care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: It's been ten years since he'd seen her last but she's even more beautiful at thirty-five than she had been at twenty-five, if that was at all possible. The memory of her is laced with his mom dying but there's happiness there, too. There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes are burning with unshed tears when he notices the way she’s playing with the charm bracelet that had once belonged to the woman loved so much.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Meet Cutes [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927492
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	a second chance

He would recognise that face and that voice anywhere. It was one he’d seen a hundred times and heard that comforting voice a thousand times over, even long after his mother had died. The minute he lays eyes on her, he feels guilt. Guilt because he can remember talking to his mom about her who had commented on the lack of wedding ring on the nurse’s finger and told him just how pretty she was. He can remember his mom asking her a thousand questions and by the time her husband came up, it was too late, he’d fallen for her. He had fallen for the married nurse who was taking care of his dying mother. The guilt feels just as intense ten years after the fact, even more so when he realises know what she must have been going through with said husband.

“Howard?” It’s hard to believe that she would recognise him, he can’t imagine how many patients and patient’s families came and went. But she remembers his name and she’s looking at him as though she’s wondering what he’s doing there until Buck tilts his head to the side and correct her, using his nickname instead, the name that only causes her nose to scrunch up in further confusion as she wonders when ‘Howard’ became ‘Chimney’. Seemingly, she ignores her brother with a roll of her eyes and he wonders if that’s what it means to have a sibling because the closest he had ever come were the people who worked with him at the 118. “I haven’t seen you since—”

He doesn’t want her to finish that sentence, just the thought makes him feel as though he’s going to be sick because it’s been ten years and he should at least be feeling a little less traumatised over the entire thing but… he’d had his mom in his life for thirty wonderful years and having to say goodbye to her was definitely the most painful experience of his entire life and nothing could ever come close. Nurse Kendall—Maddie had been there at the end, singing his mom’s favourite Korean lullaby to her that she had spent days learning with the woman when she was a little more coherent in the earlier days of her treatment. She had been kind, his mom had called her a ray of sunshine and Chimney agreed. A ray of sunshine he would have rather met in any other circumstance – although the current one isn’t too great, either, considering the reason he’s there to set up her security camera.

“Maddie, I-I didn’t… I didn’t realise.”

“Buck just told me someone called Chimney was coming, I didn’t know.” He shakes his head and smiles at her, remembering things he had tucked away safely in the back of his mind. He and his mother had gone out of state for treatment that hadn’t ended up working but had given them some more time together, because no amount of time would ever feel enough. And it’s hard, to look at the woman standing in front of him and not remember each agonising moment of that time of his life but it’s made easier by the fact that he can remember how she would make his mom laugh, and how she would pop by when she wasn’t on shift to play board games with the woman, how she had taught the older woman all the lyrics to a P!nk song, much to his amusement. He doesn’t know if he can call them good memories because of what they were laced with but—it’s close.

“Wait, how do you two know each other?” The confusion in Buck’s voice is more than evident, made even more so when Maddie practically throws herself at Chimney to wrap both her arms tightly around him. “Is anyone going to answer me or…”

Chimney doesn’t know what to say until Maddie pulls back and takes a breath, “I had the privilege of knowing Howie’s mother.”

“But she’s—” Buck is dense at the best of times and both he and Maddie shoot him a look, urging him not to finish that sentence before he awkwardly shifts from one foot the other, scratching the back of his head, “you were her nurse?”

“One of them, yeah.”

“Her favourite.” Chimney finally pipes up, a smile on his face as he does, before he pulls himself away from getting lost in everything that was the woman standing in front of him right then. She’s every much as beautiful now at thirty-five as she was as twenty-five, only there’s a sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, a darkness that she’s trying to overcome, just as he had when he’d packed his bags and come back to LA ten years before without saying goodbye to her. He remembers leaving her his mother’s bracelet and a thank you note, the ink blotched from the tears that had fallen as he’d tried to find the words but nothing had ever seemed enough. A simple ‘thank you’ followed by his name and then he’d gone.

There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes are burning with unshed tears when he notices the way she’s playing with the charm bracelet that had once belonged to the woman loved so much. He grins anyway, reaching out a hand to delicately move his fingers along the angel charm that hadn’t been there before, taking a breath before he squeezes her hand and nods his head. He has all night to get lost in the memories, to remember the good times and the bad times… and the most painful time but right then, he has a job to do. To make Maddie feel safe in her own home, just as she had helped his mother feel safe in a place she didn’t know.

“Let’s get this security camera all set up.” He forces out, hands moving back to the ladder he had brought with him as he focuses on every aspect of the apartment on where to put the cameras, avoiding eye contact with her for now.

“Yeah… I’ll grab the furniture, I guess.” Buck is puzzled, to say the least, eyes constantly darting between the two as though he’s waiting for someone to explain everything to him fully, although Chimney has no intention to and it doesn’t seem as though Maddie does either when she starts to make her way up the stairs, shooting him a grin as she does.

It’s cheesy but he can’t help but be thrown back to the moment his mom had told him that the universe works in strange ways and never to ignore it. Perhaps she was right but for now, he has to focus on making sure Maddie has nothing to worry about when she’s safe in her apartment at night. Even if it’s the only way he can help and even if he feels as though he owes her so much more… it’ll have to be enough, for now.


End file.
